The Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity - Softcover

Cristina Beltran's powerful book, The Trouble with Unity is timely for our age of Obama in which an ugly anti-immigrant spirit looms large. Don't miss it! (Cornel West, Princeton University)

In her lucid account of the complexities of identity politics, Cristina Beltran analyzes U.S. Latino efforts to forge a unified political community, persuasively arguing that unity-based politics can provide spaces for meaningful political action but too often minimizes major differences. The Trouble with Unity is an informative, balanced, and unusually thoughtful contribution. (Rogers M. Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania)

Many have looked at the growth of Latino political identity from a purely empirical perspective. This work, however, tries to understand how Latino-ness is performed and understood in the public sphere, the growth and nature of pan-ethnic identity, and how disparate individuals come together to see themselves as a political interest. Cristina Beltran's book is a work of theory built off of a careful historical examination of practice and is a major contribution. (Gary Segura, Professor of Political Science and Chair of Chicana/o Studies, Stanford University)

This book makes an original and centrally important contribution by using categories of political theory to analyze the ways in which 'Latinos' have thought about their political identities. It will become essential reading for those interested in how political theorists can contribute to the rethinking of race and ethnicity. (Joan Tronto, Professor of Political Theory, University of Minnesota)

A sophisticated analysis of social justice in the Latino community.... useful for general readership and all undergraduate work on Latino studies in the US.... Recommended. (CHOICE)

Over the past decade, much attention has been given to examining the growing political influence of Latinos in the United States in order to define the so-called "Latino vote." The idea of the existence of a coherent Latino vote or political agenda (encompassing the interests of various ethnic groups of Latin-American origin and known as civic Latinidad) is, as this book shows, not only highly debatable, but possibly politically unviable. Beltrán's book is the first comprehensive critique of civic Latinidad and the Latino electoral and protest politics that work to erase political diversity and debate in favor of images of political and cultural unity.

Situated at the intersection of political theory and Latino studies, Beltrán's book analyzes the practices, perceptions, and assumptions that shape how Latinos in the United States articulate their quest for political power and influence. The book looks at three key moments in U.S. Latino political history: the Chicano and Puerto Rican civil rights movements of the late 1960s; the emergence of Latinos as a pan-ethnic voting bloc in the 1980s; and the recent political activism surrounding illegal immigration. To this, Beltrán applies political theory to analyze the relationship among participatory democracy, public speech, and racial identification and to link the study of Latino politics to the larger question of how subjects are made capable of collective action. The Troublewith Unity draws upon a diverse range of political, feminist, and cultural theorists to challenge the very existence of a coherent "Latino" political agenda with a pre-existing set of "Latino interests" that can be found and defended.